


Bayside

by Tierfal



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Gen Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:31:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Quay is quiet on weeknights, but Jack's thoughts aren't as calm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bayside

**Author's Note:**

> For Ca_Te, to the prompt _“Nothing but blue skies/Passageways to windows/That don’t close” – Metric_.  <3

Jack folds his arms on the railing and leans on them, watching the lights play on the Bay. He looks under the jetties and along the shore, but he can’t seem to figure out where all the ducks go at night.

The sky is unusually clear tonight, and because it’s late on a weekday, he can actually enjoy the view without fragments of commentary from the citizens that stream in and out of the restaurants on weekends. He draws a deep breath and looks up—up at the canopy of stars that he can’t touch.

The door to the tourist office shuts quietly, and Jack glances over. He’s not surprised to see Ianto, but he wasn’t quite expecting the steaming mug in his visitor’s right hand.

“Darjeeling,” Ianto says, passing it to Jack and settling with his back against the rail. He looks up. “You miss it.”

Jack blows on the surface and takes a sip. It’s perfect, of course. “Traveling?” He takes another. “Some days.” And another. “It’s just that there’s so much out there—far out, so much farther than this planet, for all of the truly amazing things it has to offer, is going to get for a long time. And when you’ve tasted that… when you’ve stabbed a pen down on a timeline and then packed a bag… when you’ve felt different sunbeams on your back, when you’ve seen things you literally can’t describe because Earth languages lack the vocabulary… Being here, looking up, knowing that there is an inconceivable quantity of humming life beyond that mesosphere—it makes me feel small. But not small like _part of something big_ ; small like… powerless.”

Ianto is quiet for a moment, and then he turns towards the water, too. The blue neon from the Turkish place lights his face. “I studied a lot of history,” he says. Jack doesn’t ask him where he’s going with that, because Ianto never speaks for the sake of speaking. “And it’s a bit intimidating, at times—it seems like one long narrative about extraordinary people, rare people, making momentous decisions and changing the course of the world as they see fit. And to some extent, perhaps it is. But eventually I started to think that history is also just people. Churchill was probably a bastard in the morning before he’d had his tea. He probably ran out of clean underwear sometimes. There’s nothing about the makers of history that’s special on its own—it’s just where they are and what they do. It’s just people taking their individual lives one moment at a time.” He shifts to look at Jack. “Just people like you, Jack. People who care a lot about the state of the world, whatever world they’re in.”

Jack smiles. “You know, Ianto,” he says, “when I get this thing fixed—” He twists his wrist to indicate the VM. “—I’m going to take you first thing to the planet Wade.”

“What’s there, then?”

Jack flashes a grin. “The History of History Museum.”

If Jack didn’t know Ianto so well, he wouldn’t recognize the signs of a swallowed smile. “You are a cruel master, Jack.”

“Maybe.” Jack holds out the mug. “But I saved you a sip of this excellent tea.”

Ianto gives him a look—but he doesn’t turn it down.


End file.
